the hobbit

There are times when Tolkien is ridiculously verbose and provides every last detail about a scene, but there are times when he doesn’t quite tell the whole story. Were you confused by the One Ring when you finished reading The Lord of the Rings? This video by CGP Grey explains it all along with great artwork by Knut J Håland which you can own by supporting the project on Patreon.

Ah, the holidays. Families gather, exchange gifts, eat meals, and try to explain The Hobbit to each other. I’m not sure if this epic moment happened during Redditor Daniel379ba’s holiday family gathering or not, but I bet it did. This is the Redditor’s uncle trying to explain The Hobbit to grandpa.

He’s using a whiteboard to list the cast of key characters, and there’s an illustration of the Lonely Mountain. I bet the whiteboard got completely covered by the end of the explanation, and if he was covering the movies rather than the book, well, he would have to erase and start over on a clean surface repeatedly.

Be sure to enlarge the picture to read the list of characters on the whiteboard.

The Hobbit was one slim book that’s been stretched way out into three films. Now we’ve got an Honest Trailer for Desolation of Smaug that tells it like it really is, from a vault that looks like it belongs to Scrooge McDuck to a bunch of Dwarves that are captured by everyone and everything.

The Hobbit is not an overly long book, but that didn’t stop Peter Jackson from dividing it up into three movies. Many have wondered how it would have been as one film, but Los Angeles-based editor Joel Walden has gone a step further by giving us a trailer for The Hobbit: The Complete Journey.

He uses clips from the existing movies to create his trailer and, in the process, does a darn fine job of telling what needs to be told in about 4 minutes. Now this is the movie that I really wanted to see.

Billy Boyd, a.k.a. Pippin, is singing the moving song that will play during the end credits of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. We heard a clip of the song that will mark the end of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories, but the full song and video has now been released. Ladies and gents, get ready for tears.

Boyd’s voice is beautiful, and “The Last Goodbye” plays over scenes from both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films. Regardless of how you feel about the fact that The Hobbit has been ripped apart into three movies, this video will make you feel sad that we’re once again saying goodbye to Middle-earth.

A few weeks ago we learned that Billy Boyd would be lending his vocal talents to Middle-earth once again. He sang as Pippin in The Return of the King, and he’ll be performing “The Last Goodbye” in the end credits of The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies. Unless Peter Jackson adapts The Silmarillion, this will be the last of his interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories to hit the big screen.

WaterTower Music (Warner Bros. music label) has posted a clip of the song, and I can already tell I’m going to need tissues. It’s haunting.

Being an airport in Middle-earth means you have some oddball visitors. New Zealand’s Wellington Airport has been home to Gollum and now Smaug the dragon. The detailed sculpture measures 13 feet deep and was made by the Weta Workshop. The fierce beast was installed to promote the final installment of The Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies. Smaug greets passengers as they check-in to their flights (and probably thinks about how to steal all their treasures).

It’s been awhile since Air New Zealand released it’s fantastic Hobbit-themed in-flight safety video. With the release of the final film in The Hobbit trilogy, the time was ripe to make a new one so they’ve created what they’re billing as, “The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made.” It features all the usual safety tips, but it also has cameos by the actors from the film in one of the few safety videos that everyone will actually watch and enjoy.

Warner Bros. Pictures has set up a special site called For Your Consideration designed to promote its films to Academy Awards voters. One of the things they think voters should consider nominating is a Best Original Song contender from The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. The song is The Last Goodbye which is written by screenwriters Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh, and actor Billy Boyd who also sings the tune.

You might remember him singing All Shall Fade in the original trilogy which may have brought tears to your eyes. Expect the same this time around, and have a box of tissues at the ready.

It’s important to study if you hope to get good grades, but a lot of parents spend far too much time trying to convince their kids to crack open their books. Here’s the perfect solution. Watch as Ian McKellen breaks out his best Gandalf to the delight of the kids at Chew Valley School in Bristol. If he can’t convince these kids, then no one can.